What makes our annual Retrospectives Facilitators Gatherings successful? What are the success factors?

Session host: Ervin

Participants: George, Ainsley, Charlotte, Jutta, Diana, Esther

After a short brainstorming we found the following success factors (without claiming to be complete):

• continuity in org committee participants
• new voices
• good mix of new and previous attendees
• supporting org committee
• leapfrog organizer structure
• learn from past: experienced organizers join new coordination committee for support

• thoughtful experiments
• generally focused topics
• it's not all about retrospectives
• it's not all about Agile/Scrum

• intentional inclusiveness
• friendly open environment (venue, format, atmosphere)
• group cohesive activities
• creating a container
• focus on the possibility for good atmosphere
• attention to initial conditions and inclusion

• structure to support self-organizing (e.g. Open Space)
• clustered events
• take care of the group size
• people stay the whole week
• people leave with information they can use
• people make new connections / reconnect
• diversity of opinions, focus, interests
• we have (mostly) managed to attract participants who have a lot to share
• it's OK to attend sessions, it's OK not to attend sessions
• low key
• a bit of specialness in location
• space that connects with nature
• beautiful location

It's highly advisable for organizers of future Gatherings to take these expectations/requirements into consideraton!

The original session poster: